IPCC Check Kites Gergis

A few days ago, WUWT pointed out that the American Meteorological Society webpage showed that the Gergis et al paper had been officially “withdrawn”. However, readers should know better than to presume that this would have any effect on IPCC use of the reconstruction.

The withdrawal of the Gergis article hasn’t had the slightest impact on IPCC usage of the Gergis reconstruction, which continues to be used in the recently released AR5 Second Order Draft, thanks to academic check kiting reminiscent of Ammann and Wahl. Tim Osborn of CRU is a Lead Author of the AR5 chapter (as he was in AR4) and would be familiar with the technique from AR4.

Although David Karoly had denied that Gergis et al had been withdrawn, the AMS finally admitted this at their website here.

However, the Gergis reconstruction continues to be used in the IPCC Second Order Draft (released for review in early October). The figure below shows its use in the First Order Draft on the left and its use in the Second Order Draft on the right – the two reconstructions are identical up to smoothing.

However, the attribution has changed. The First Order Draft attributed the reconstruction to Gergis et al (then submitted to Journal of Climate, later accepted and then withdrawn. See CA posts here). The Second Order Draft attributes the Gergis reconstruction to PAGES 2K Consortium (submitted to Science).

I presume that the PAGES 2K Consortium has done a little academic check kiting a la Wahl and Ammann i.e. that they have cited the Gergis et al reconstruction even though the article has been withdrawn. The IPCC then cited the article that kited the check (a kitation? :))

It would be interesting to see precisely how the PAGES 2K Consortium (of which Gergis was a member) stickhandled their citation of the withdrawn Gergis et al article. I doubt that they were entirely candid with Sciencemag on the matter.

The PAGES 2K consortium article should be online to Second Order Draft reviewers at the WG1 website, but I haven’t seen it because I haven’t signed up as a reviewer since I am not prepared to agree to the secrecy demands instituted by Thomas Stocker at Phil Jones’ urging. But for any IPCC reviewers reading this post, take a look. See if this most recent check-kiting makes you proud to be part of the organization.

although the Gergis/Karoly team has not itself been too consistent or rigorous about when they are describing Australia and when they are talking about a wide region “Australasia”…. and as I recall their paper set definite long/lat boundaries for their Australasia region but then went outside that box without explanation or justification in using some proxies….

The PAGES 2K consortium article should be online to Second Order Draft reviewers at the WG1 website, but I haven’t seen it because I haven’t signed up as a reviewer since I am not prepared to agree to the secrecy demands instituted by Thomas Stocker at Phil Jones’ urging. But for any IPCC reviewers reading this post, take a look. See if this most recent check-kiting makes you proud to be part of the organization.

Wow. “Retract and use anyway” was not even on my list of possible outcomes, so I did not see that coming. Now I want to see what the curve would look like using only the proxies that actually passed significance testing

At least for myself, I could use some more calendar attributions. What day was Gergis paper retracted? I went to the WUWT link, it shows a third party tweet announcing withdrawal October 18, which I assume is after the release of the “Second Order Draft” in “early October.” Maybe I am out of the loop on this one news-wise, but speaking for out-of-the-loopsters, I could use a little more chronology.

Please feel free to withdraw my words here if they are not helpful.
Steve: the precise dates are obscure. Karoly was a withdrawal-denier before he was a withdrawal-admitter.

The paper was ‘put on hold’ on 8th June 2012. Whether it had been withdrawn was left ambiguous, as Steve implies. On 9th September a commenter on a Kiwi blog, wat dabney, checked a URL provided by another poster, for the Gergis paper, and reported the exact wording quoted by Steve above. The WUWT report originated with Jean S here on CA on 18th, who found these words.

Make of the semantics what you will but some time between 8th June and 9th September ‘put on hold’ became ‘withdrawn’. The IPCC had no doubt by then hatched its escape plan for the dodgy reconstruction, by using another paper quoting the Gergis, in whatever strange transitional state it was deemed to be in.

No government should listen to this organization until it changes its ways.

the data link at ncdc has a note from 13 June speaking of resubmission. If it was resubmitted until end of July then it’s use in the IPCC is OK. I’d think the reference to the consortium paper is mainly meant to have one source for all/most regional reconstructions.

PS: the innuendo of the this blog-post is once more … annoying.
Steve: elsewhere it’s been noted that they didn’t make their July 31 deadline. While you may not like the implications, we’ve seen this before with Wahl and Ammann.

If it was resubmitted until end of July then it’s use in the IPCC is OK.

Ahhh, the refreshing world of climate science! Where a paper showing major methodological flaws that has been hastily withdrawn and resubmitted is “OK”, provided it is (a) submitted before the entirely arbitrary date, and (b) provides the “correct” answer.

In the rest of science the silly-billies are far more concerned about whether the science might be actually correct and verifiable.

I presume that the PAGES reconstruction in the second figure is the thick black line with the gray uncertainty region? I don’t think that it’s a smoothed version of the original Gergis et al. curve, although it’s definitely missing pretty much all high-frequency information. For example, the prominent peak c.1310 of Gergis et al. is entirely missing; that is a low period in the PAGES curve. I suspect it’s a new reconstruction from the revised submission.

A 1000-year temperature reconstruction for land and ocean representing Australasia provides
evidence that summer temperatures in the post-1950 CE period were warmest in the last ~580 years (PAGES
2k Consortium, submitted). Prior to this, the reconstruction is based on only three or fewer proxy series and
less confident conclusions can be supported.

The comment about proxy counts certainly *sounds* like the original Gergis et al. reconstruction, which has 4 or more proxies only after 1428. Could be smoothing, I suppose, or perhaps a differnt method of reconstruction.

The new curve has significantly wider error bars than the original, but they still seem too narrow for the pre-1400 era when there are only 3 (often 2) proxies. In the original the computed error bars did not include a term for sampling error. Perhpas they added such a term (which made the error intervals wider) but it doesn’t vary much with the number of proxies. That might account for the fact that the error interval even in the 20th century isn’t a whole lot less than that of 1000 years ago.

One assumes that minor modifications were made in order for the authors to claim that the work is different to that which was withdrawn. This way they can attempt to protect themselves against charges of poor ethics (something many of us take extremely seriously in scientific research).

This reminds me of a paper I recently read by Lewandowsky and others (including John Cook of Skeptical Science fame). I wouldn’t recommend anyone bother reading it in its entirety, but there are some relevant aspects. I think the best quote is:

Research using this paradigm has consistently found that retractions rarely, if ever, have the intended effect of eliminating reliance on misinformation, even when people believe, understand, and later remember the retraction

Sound familiar? How about:

Taken together, these results suggest that a healthy sense of skepticism or induced distrust can go a long way in avoiding the traps of misinformation.

Where was the “healthy sense of skepticism” for Lewandowsky’s results which we now know to be basically meaningless?

Steve, you are becoming a master of social satire as it relates to climate shenanigans. The powers that be on the warmist side seem intent on providing you with an unending source of comedic material for your posts.

Thanks for keeping your blog accessible and enjoyable for those of us who don’t always understand the science and related data.

Steve: Is there any reason to believe that the new Figure in the SOD is not an integral part of the paper submitted to Science? Of course, those peer-reviewing the SOD have no idea what this submission to Sciencemag actually says, nor can they be sure it will survive peer review. The Paleoclimate chapter of AR5 will say whatever the Lead Authors want it to say.

The first priority of the 2k consortium is the generation of temperature reconstructions for each of the nine 2k regions. IPCC showed interest in this effort and encouraged the 2k consortium to prepare a synthesis paper in time for potential use in AR5 (i.e. submission before 20 July 2012). To meet this deadline, the 2k groups have made a tremendous effort during the last months to collect temperature data and produce new multi-proxy regional temperature series using state-of-the-art reconstruction methods.

As small writing team will meet in Bern to assemble those reconstructions and prepare a manuscript draft. The paper will be reviewed and authored by all 2k members under the pseudonym “PAGES 2k consortium” and submitted to a scientific journal.

A possible scenario:
-“PAGES 2k consortium” uses (in the May draft) the original graph from Gergis et al (with the paper status “in press”)
-Gergis et al is “put on hold” (beginning of June), which still allows “PAGES 2k consortium” to cite the original manuscript when the final submission (to Science) is done (before July 20)
-after “PAGES 2k consortium” submission, Gergis et al is officially withdrawn
-Gergis et al is resubmitted (in September?)
-when the “PAGES 2k consortium” paper comes back from the review (around this time or later I would guess), the citation is changed to the new Gergis et al submission

It’s also easy to find PAGES 2k newsletters on the web, for example newsletter 4, May 2011, that talks of a consortium paper that ‘was invited by the IPCC’ for AR5. The group leaders for the Australian part of the consortium are J Gergis and C. Turney.

I hope nobody is going to make silly remarks about this, as FoxNews.com did yesterday:

Chris Turney, a professor of climate change at Australia’s University of New South Wales, said it was “silly” to suggest he and 73 others aboard the MV Akademic Shokalskiy were trapped in ice they’d sought to prove had melted. He remained adamant that sea ice is melting, even as the boat remained trapped in frozen seas.

CAGW omnipresent and mysterious the world over. Call those rescue helicopters.

“To facilitate the distribution and assessment of climate data and to encourage contributions by data generators, all 2k reconstructions and associated proxy records will be permanently archived on internet-accessible data archives, such as the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology at NOAA (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/paleo.html).”

relevant items from the Phipps publication list and works “in progress” which I linked above (it will be interesting to determine whether there is indeed overlap between the J. Climate and the Science submissions, journals usually frown severely and penalize/retract/reject any overlap of submissions if they are pending at same time!!):

“Update October 2012: The manuscript “Evidence of unusual late 20th century warming from an Australasian temperature reconstruction spanning the last millennium” by Joelle Gergis, Raphael Neukom, Ailie Gallant, Steven Phipps and David Karoly has been re-submitted to the Journal of Climate and is being reviewed again.”

From the introduction of the withdrawn Gergis paper we have the following excerpt attempting to explain the motivation for the temperature reconstruction presented in the paper and its scope:

“In response to the lack of continental-scale climate reconstructions in the IPCC AR4, in 2009 the International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme’s (IGBP) Past Global Changes (PAGES) initiative developed the Regional 2k Network, a set of working groups to collect and process the best available proxy data to develop climate reconstructions in eight regions of the world (http://www.pages-igbp.org/workinggroups/2k-network; Newman et al., 2009). The Australasia
(Aus2k) working group is examining the Indo–Pacific region consisting of the landmasses of Australia, New Zealand, the Indonesian archipelago and the neighbouring islands of the Pacific Ocean. This paper is the Aus2k working group’s regional consolidation of temperature proxies to provide a ‘best estimate’ of Australasian temperature variations over the past 1000 years.”

I think the motivation described above obviously puts the Gergis paper author’s hastiness to get the proper message out for AR5 in perspective. There were obvious “official” deadlines to meet and, of course, a result to be obtained that would not allow the paper to be ignored by the AR5 reviewers.

As for the scope of the paper, it is rather evident that some major maneuvering was in order. First of all the largest single land mass in the Australasia region as defined in the Gergis paper, the mainland of Australia, is without proxy representation in the reconstruction. There are 2 coral proxies located off the Australia mainland coast that are in the reconstruction.

The 12 TRW proxies are clustered together closely in New Zealand (9) and Tasmania(3).

The two ice core proxies are from the Antarctica and coincide with the same geographic location of Vostok. These proxies are located well outside the defined Australasia region and are 2 of 7 proxies used in Gergis that are outside the defined Australasia region.

Of the 13 coral proxies, 8 are in the defined Australasia region and 5 are outside. Most of the coral proxies represent a rather modern time period from 1750-2000. The only long period proxy, Palmyra (1149-1998), is a discontinuous proxy that was pieced together and has a high leverage on the modern warming period. Palmyra and two other coral proxies used in the Gergis reconstruction, Rarotonga and Rarotonga 3R, are far out of the defined Australasia geographic box.

As I recall, the proxies from outside the Gergis paper defined Australasia region had high leverage on the modern warming period and would suppose that once the defined geographic box was allowed to be violated other alternative proxies were available. At this point it should be remembered that the Gergis authors unabashedly preselected proxies. They thought they were using a high frequency correlation when in fact it was a low frequency one for selections. Given that that error caused the paper to be withdrawn I wonder what that portends for the paper selecting proxies outside the define area in the resubmitted paper.

Given that that error caused the paper to be withdrawn I wonder what that portends for the paper selecting proxies outside the define area in the resubmitted paper.

Serious question: what if any overall effect on the paper would occur if the “defined area” was recast to include the locations of the current out-of-box proxies ?

I mean that if the area was redefined to include all current proxy locations, would this irreparably damage other sections of the paper ? In my experience, when authority looks like losing an argument, it simply changes the rules

It’s an interesting (and new) definition of ‘Australasia’. The way the term is commonly used and understood in the relevant part of the world is Australia and New Zealand, or Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea (and their islands).

Certain climate scientists are now redefining geography in addition to the several other branches of learning they have stamped with their unique approach to semantics.

johanna,
It’s not just the geography definition that’s a problem. The bigger problem is to find a set or sets of temperatute/time relations for each proxy site. It is of course subjective whether one requires 100 years of observations from a set of instruments adjacent to the tree whose rings are examined; or whether a whole world temperature can be used for the calibration period; or something in between.

The greatest weakness by far that I see with the science aspects of this paper are lack of suitable temperature records. Ed Cook has admitted this for some of his Huon Pine Tasmania reconstruction. There is a reconstruction in the pipeline from the Baw Baw region east of Melbourne, where the most relevant station was started in Sept 1991. Likewise, at Mt Read (Huon Pines) there’s a newish station started Sept 1996.

The satellite period since 1979 is under a cloud because of the divergence problem with some proxy methods. The ground temperature data prior to that have been homogenised to a degree that causes loss of confidence in their suitability. Sea surface temperatures underwent a jump with Argo, but some of the sites used here might be too shallow for Argo and hence unreliable. One could write a paper about the fantasy land of associating distant temperatures with diverse proxies. One site used in the Gergis paper is described at responsive to rainfall, but nontheless a temperature signal can be extracted. This paper is for true believers with eyes firmly closed.

“The greatest weakness by far that I see with the science aspects of this paper are lack of suitable temperature records.”

The greatest weakness I see is the authors inability to rwealize the statistical consequences of their selection process. If you have looked at lots of proxy series you know that these series show meanderings which can end with an upwardess, downwardess or flatess trend. If one is allowed to willy nilly select based on the recent time trends it is rather evident what the end result will be.

Of greater interest to me is that given this selection latitude (pun intended) just how difficult it apparently remains to find the “correct” ending trends within the bounds of the Gergis paper defined Australasia boundaries. I went back and checked the ending trends of the 7 proxies that Gergis used from outside the defined area and 5 of them show exaggerated ending trends and greater than what is seen within the bounded Australasia region. The 2 Antarctica proxies of O18 and accumulation are more subtle as to the ending warming trend and particularly with regards to temperature proxied peaks going back in time.

One could write a paper about the fantasy land of associating distant temperatures with diverse proxies

Thanks, Geoff

That is the exact point to my question above. Redefining the geographical boundary box to include all proxy locations irreparably weakens their relevance through improbably large distances … but I expect that in the end-game this will not be regarded as important

That document will say “This document has not been retracted” or the contents will include the statement of retraction and other information deemed useful by signatory parties. No more mystery about document validity.

It is also of concern that some studies were still at the work-in-progress stage when the paper was peer reviewed. One might speculate that the objective had been settled before review and the belated insertion of certain numbers might be an inducement to junior authors to reinforce what was already submitted. It’s work done the wrong way; it’s not classical science.

Have a heart, fellas. I love Steve’s work, but Bishop Hill has a role to fulfill in the community too, and how is he going to do that without another “Jesus Paper” to explain lucidly to the average thickie like myself?

Here is another example of a problem that could be caused by the urgency of meeting a cut-oo date for inclusion in AR5. The paper was peer reviewed before this storm broke on 5 June 2012, so it is strange to read here that –

How can a person conducting a peer review do so when the material is incomplete, including to the stage where a conclusion cannot be reached?

A new version of this manuscript has been submitted and is under review.

I find it strange that a page for a withdrawn manuscript is informing about a re-submission under review. I wonder if this is an indication that there is some type of technical loophole which allows them to keep the original submission date for the re-submission in order to meet the 5AR requirements.

[…] IPCC Check Kites Gergis « Climate Audit A few days ago, WUWT pointed out that the American Meteorological Society webpage showed that the Gergis et al paper had been officially “withdrawn”. However, readers should know better than to presume that this would … IPCC Check Kites Gergis « Climate Audit […]